Since I just bought my new Macbook Pro, I had to reinstall all of my Firefox extensions, plugins and tools. So, I figured, hey, why not write a detailed post with examples about my “Top 7 Firefox extensions, plugins, and tools” that are near and dear to my heart!
Top 7 Firefox Extensions, Plugins, and Tools:
1. Firebug: If you haven’t used this yet and you are working on something internet related then you are surely missing out. I love the fact that I can pull it up to either fix issues, work on making adjustments on the fly, doing competitive analysis or a site audit.
Here is a screenshot of the FireBug window open and inspecting a section of the page:
2. Y! Slow: Since site speed is such an important part of conversion, you can use this to do some testing on your websites to test how they are running in certain environments. It provides data like overall page size and # of seconds the page took to load. Now, note that this all depends on your connection speed, always remember that there are people downloading pages at slower speeds, then you might be.
Y! Slow shown here in the Status Bar:
3. SearchStatus: I love the SearchStatus tool because it has the ability to show me PageRank, Alexa Rank and Compete Rank. I know, I know, I think we are all passed using PageRank as a measuring stick (My PageRank is bigger than yours!…Ha! I’ve been dying to say that!), but still beneficial none-the-less. Also, search status is very easy to do things like turning on no-follow highlighting, link reports, meta tags, etc.
SearchStatus in the Firefox status bar:
4. SEOBook SEO for Firefox Extension: If you are an SEO, this is definitely a tool that you need to for competitive analysis, link building and even helps me when doing keyword research.
SEO for Firefox in the SERPs:
SEO for Firefox links under the search field in Google:
5. SEOBook Rank Checker: Another great tool from SEOBook and something that I end up using daily. (Yes, I’m addicted to rankings! Don’t lie, you are too!)
Rank Checker in Firefox (status bar icon is highlighted):
6. Web Developer Toolbar: This is great when I want to test pages with images off, javascript off, and many other important functions.
Screenshot of the menu option, Tools -> Firefox:
7. LiveHTTPHeaders: Simply put this is great for checking HTTP header status codes, is great for verifying 301/302 redirects, 200’s, etc.
LiveHTTPHeaders in action:
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June 9th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
This is the best, and most clearly written, top extension list I’ve seen so far — and being an extension developer, I’ve seen a lot.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I like how I have 6 outta the 7 extensions installed on my PC at work. Goes to show something….
June 10th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Nice list, I use all those and many many more.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I would add one more to the list
http://www.linkdiagnosis.com/ firefox extension
June 10th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Interesting list. I don’t use all of them but did get new informative information from it. Thanks
June 10th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Excellent list Tony!
I use Firebug, Web Developer Toolbar and SEOBook, the other ones were new to me. Thanks!
June 10th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Excellent post Tony!
This is very interesting list, though few of them I already using but LiveHTTP Headers is new for me, I m gonna try it out right now. Cool post.
Thanks for sharing such valuable resources with the SEO world.
June 11th, 2008 at 12:03 am
My favorite that you’ve missed is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3362 - this allows you to keep a very close eye on what your competitors do tracking every change on their website.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:56 am
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